


Queen & Huntress

by spicyobsession



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst and Humor, Canon Gay Relationship, Character Study, Developing Relationship, Drabble Series, Drama, Established Relationship, F/F, Femslash, Mostly Dialogue, Past Relationship(s), Romance, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-30
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2017-11-19 22:36:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 6,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/578356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicyobsession/pseuds/spicyobsession
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Opposites attract, right? Our connection was powerful but doomed." A scattered examination of the relationship between Aria and Nyreen: before, during, and after. Light on plot, heavy on introspection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. lunch break

**Author's Note:**

> The scenes are extremely unorganized and random, but they are here if you wish to read them. They take place before, during, and after their relationship, with little to no grounding for the exact setting/time period. This is because I am lazy, but! Read on, if you want XD
> 
> Scene: Aria's war bunker in Omega, present day.

"You're so serious, Nyreen."

She meets Aria's stare across the makeshift table. The pirate queen is leaning back against her chair, one hand idly stirring the contents of what passes for food here in the bunker. Shepard had chosen not to sit with them, opting to inspect Harrot's now-mobile Emporium on the other side of the room. Everyone else had given the two women a wide berth to themselves as they busied with preparations for the next assault. For the moment, there's nowhere to look but at her (as if she can bring herself to look anywhere, regardless.)

Nyreen grunts. "Considering the situation we're in right now, I have to be."

"Still, what happened to your sense of humor?" Aria hums knowingly. "You used to laugh more."

She can't tell if the asari cut her reply short to make her guess at the unspoken words, but she wouldn't be surprised if that's the case: it had always been a guessing game with her, especially in those last months before she left. Perhaps that had been Aria's way of giving her an easy exit out. It still hadn't been easy. Nyreen tears open another tube of nutri-paste, avoiding her ex-partner's eyes. "Maybe you're not around when it happens."

"Hard to believe that," Aria says, pushing her bowl away, "when I've got eyes and ears in every corner of Omega."

"Not every corner," she can't resist murmuring.

She spoke too loudly, of course. Aria smirks. "You may think you got the better of me, but I'm always watching."

"Keep telling yourself that," Nyreen says and sucks at the tube. She feels the weight of Aria's gaze on her and refuses to look back up. _It's why I had to get away. I didn't want you to watch me turn into another you._


	2. trust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene: Aria's private apartment on Omega, pre-2183.

"Take a deep breath, and relax."

Nyreen's mandibles flick in agitation. "I've never done this before."

Smirking, Aria arches a brow. "Really? You're more of a baby than I thought."

"You know what I'm talking about."

"Which is why I'm telling you to lie back on the bed," she says, gently pushing Nyreen onto the sheets, "and let me steer."

Nyreen says nothing as Aria peels away the last of the turian's under-armor. Her hands rove lightly over leathery plates and skin, drawing sharp breaths from the other woman when her fingers pass a sensitive area. Nyreen is different from most of the pirate queen's lovers—she's quiet and restrained, her passion coming through in other ways that intrigue her. After a few more minutes of Aria's attentions, Nyreen lets out a pleased hum, the vibrations of which travel up the asari's arms.

"Better?" she asks, pitching her voice low.

Nyreen nods.

"Now then." Aria throws a leg over, straddling her in one fluid movement. Unfiled talons clutch at her waist, their tips subtly digging into her hips. Nyreen had wanted to clip them, and normally Aria wouldn't have disagreed, but like taking her to bed in her own private apartment or letting her sit on her couch in Afterlife, the little exceptions simply keep growing, and she'll think about why that is later. At the moment, there's a woman spread willing and waiting underneath her. Aria suddenly flexes her thighs, silently relishing the dark expression that blooms in Nyreen's eyes.

Something's still off about her body language, however. Everything below the neck is pliant and ready to go, but Nyreen's faceplates are tensed, her mandibles pressed tight against her mouth. Sighing, Aria leans in close enough to see the faint striations on her faceplates. "What is it? Don't you trust me, Nyreen?"

Under Aria's gaze, her plates shift into the turian equivalent of a smile. "I shouldn't."

"But you do."

As impassive as her face can be, the subvocals in her voice are another matter. "Don't make me regret it," she says haltingly, wording her response like an order when a plea is all Aria can hear.

She strokes the elegant sweep of Nyreen's mandible, moving her hand to cup the back of her head that weighs so little in her grasp. "I won't," Aria says, surprising herself with those reassuring words.

Her eyes slowly turn black. "Embrace eternity."


	3. a face to the name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene: Pre-2183. Nyreen hears (and sees) Aria for the first time.

Nyreen had heard the name first. It was whispered, shouted, murmured, cursed, and announced all throughout the station, from the nicest apartments high atop the mined asteroid to the lowest slums among where the vorcha dwelled. Four letters, three syllables, one name: Aria. Trailing behind were a slew of titles attached to this ruthless sovereign of the lawless, each one with a different connotation depending on the species that uttered it (“queen” being the most common translation.) However, “Aria” the moniker contained all of these meanings, and more. To say the name was to summon the history of Omega itself: violent, brutish, and defiant— like her. 

The person came later. Nyreen was nursing a drink at one of the bars in Afterlife, hopelessly lost and credits away from becoming penniless on the worst station to be penniless on, when a circle of bodyguards stamped their way into the club. Standing in the middle of this motley assortment was an asari whose every footstep screamed ownership of the hunk of rock they both found themselves on. Her white jacket was edgy and immaculate, its stiff lapel flipped high like a royal collar for the pirate queen that she undeniably was. The intricate tracery on her face was the crown that framed a pair of cold eyes and a cruel, sensual mouth. 

Nyreen stared shamelessly, turning her head long enough for someone to poison her drink, if they had been so inclined. Luckily, no one did. She couldn’t look away once her mind matched the face to the name, the history to the ruler. After what seemed like an eternity, the moment was over, and Aria passed by her without a second glance—not that it mattered. After all, who was she (who was _anyone_ ) compared to such a fierce, beautiful creature?


	4. tryouts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene: Pre-2183. One of Afterlife's audition rooms.

One of the dancers slides down the pole into a split on the ground, throwing her head back to shoot Aria a sultry expression from under her lashes. She nods her approval, gesturing to the woman to continue. Besides having everyone in this Goddess-forsaken station answer to her, overseeing tryouts for potential Afterlife entertainers is one of her favorite perks as Omega’s ruler. The dancer bends backwards, curving her back into a tight arch while a single leg shoots into the air at a perfect 90-degree angle. Aria moves to run her hand up a well-muscled thigh before she notices Nyreen staring at her from the corner of her eye.

She raises a brow. “You’re welcome to share. There’s plenty to go around.”

Startled, Nyreen blinks and glances away. “I’ll pass.”

“Why the hell did I bring you here then?” Aria lets her hand drop. “The merchandise needs to be reviewed, and it’s faster when two people do it.”

Her faceplates shift in the turian equivalent of discomfort. “Didn’t we just evaluate a group last week?”

“Quick turnover,” Aria says dismissively. At the turian’s continued silence, she huffs and sends the dancer away. “Fine, I’ll have you do something else next time. That means you won’t get to watch though.”

The words have the intended effect. Nyreen’s eyes—like sparks of green on her face—turn positively feral. “Do what you want.” She roughly checks off several names from their datapad before barking out, “Send in the next one.”

Aria smirks as the other dancer enters the room—an asari, possibly a mere century or two old, with brilliant indigo skin and bright patterns on her crest. “I like it when you’re feisty.”

Nyreen fixes Aria with another look as a song begins to play. “Only when it suits you.”


	5. rendezvous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene: Pre-2183. Nyreen waits for Aria at Afterlife (when times are better.)

Nyreen taps her talons on the counter and checks the time again. Aria had asked to meet her here in Afterlife. That was half an hour ago, and she hadn’t been at her usual alcove either. Outright leaving and skipping the appointment is a tempting option, but after bearing witness to how Aria treats no-shows (despite her no-shows) compels her to stay at her stool and stir her untouched drink. The batarian across the counter had mixed it for her at a steep discount. When she asked why, he told her it was because “she’s with Aria.” Nyreen didn’t know how to respond so she had said nothing. 

The voice in her ear makes her jump in her stool. “Come here often?”

Once her nerves settle down, she slightly turns her head to see Aria out of the corner of her eye. The asari’s wearing an amused little smirk with a hand cocked on her hip. “Only when my preferred bartender’s on duty.”

“You know that the drinks are shit anyway,” Aria says, “People come here for the ambiance, to be seen.” She jerks her head towards the center platform that forms a ring around Afterlife’s holo-pillar. “Well, that and the dancers I handpick.”

There’s a lilt to the pirate queen’s words that has Nyreen giving her a second, and third glance. When Aria tilts her head and gives the tiniest smile, the pieces deliciously fall into place. She idly swirls the liquid around in her glass before saying lightly, “You must be fairly important to have such a privileged job.”

“Fairly? This place can’t run without my say-so. Maybe you’ve heard of me?”

Nyreen takes a prim sip of her drink, masking her wince. Indeed, the alcohol leaves much to be desired. “Can’t say I have. You’ll certainly have heard of me though.”

The other woman slowly shakes her head. “Actually, no. In fact,” she continues, leaning close to Nyreen’s ear again, “I doubt anyone’s had the pleasure of _hearing_ you, least of all me.”

The sudden hand on the small of her back, its fingers teasingly close to her waist, makes her eyes flutter close. “It could be that you’re not listening hard enough.”

Aria nods solemnly, as if deeply considering the possibility. “Tell you what—it’s too loud in here. Why don’t we go someplace else quieter, where we can hear each other properly?”  
“An excellent suggestion.”


	6. wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scene: Pre-2183. A direct continuation from the last chapter

Nyreen pushes Aria right up against the wall, and the first thing she says is, “I’ll have to get this jacket cleaned again.”

In response, Nyreen just presses harder, wedging a knee between her thighs. Long, gloved talons playfully creep over the buckles on her blacksuit while the other hand grabs a firm hold of her ass for better support against the side of the tunnel they ducked into after leaving Afterlife. Aria rips Nyreen’s hood off just in time to watch her mandibles flex minutely, the action appearing semi-voluntary from the way the turian’s breathing is layered with very interesting, multi-tonal noises that she can stand to hear more of. 

She brings their faces close. “What was that? I couldn’t hear you.”

Nyreen’s low chuckle vibrates the air between their mouths. “You talk too much, Aria.”

“And you’re mummer than an elcor with nothing to say.”

“Haven’t you heard of the human proverb, ‘silence is golden?’”

Aria gives a perfunctory glance of their surroundings, circling back to their current position. Her lips twitch. “Silence isn’t what got you here.”

“It is what’s kept me here though.” 

The heat burning through their clothes makes Aria restless and antsy. “We’ll see how long you stay quiet.”

In her haste to speed up the proceedings, they gently bump foreheads by accident, at which Nyreen stiffens while Aria smirks, their eyes meeting in the middle. It’s a fleeting search for what the other is thinking, and when the moment passes, Nyreen says, “Is that a threat, or a suggestion?”

Aria stares amusedly before rolling her hips against the turian’s pelvis, earning a startled, flanging croon. In the near-total silence of the tunnels, the sound eerily reverberates around them. She curls her fingers over the back of Nyreen’s neck and murmurs, “Both. Always both.”


	7. French girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scene: Pre-2183, Aria's private apartment in Omega.

Nyreen has been with her fair share of turian sisters, human women here and there, and once, a quarian on her Pilgrimage who wanted to recreate That Scene from Fleet & Flotilla for novelty's sake. Asari were a given too—but no one like Aria. None of them had her deep violet skin that looks indigo under the right light or the faint smattering of freckles sprinkled across her head crest or those cold blue eyes and the dark mark bisecting her bottom lip that begs to be sucked on and nipped at—

"I'm starting to think I'm wasting my time here."

Nyreen blinks and shakes her head. "I was thinking."

"Didn't I teach you how to multi-task?" Aria asks, smirking.

She says nothing and peels off her under-armor, mindful of being watched by the asari on the bed who reclines on her stomach, back arched and head turned like a painter's nude. Aria's foot kicks up to playfully sway in the air as she waits. Her little toes at the end are curled. The entire composition from head-to-toe looks like one of those old human paintings she's seen, where the human woman stares out from the frame, beckoning the viewer to come forward for a closer inspection (but whether to look or touch, Nyreen doesn't know.)

"You're doing it again."

Nyreen climbs onto the bed at last, ducking her head. "Sorry."

"As punishment for making me wait so long, I come first tonight."

Nyreen gives a soft, amused noise as she traces the curve of Aria's hip with the tip of her talons, arcing over her ass to rub small circles on the inside of her thigh. The other woman sighs and closes her eyes. Does this make her the painter or the viewer? "You always do."

Perhaps both.


	8. just one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scene: Pre-2183. Aria thinks about Nyreen.

To be frank, Aria wouldn't have been able to pick Nyreen out from a crowd. From a distance, she looks like most of the other turian women on the station: lean and intimidating, with a certain grace that their male counterparts lack. Her mandibles are longer and more elaborately shaped while her waist is but a whisper's breadth, but the same can be said for every other female turian on Omega. It isn't until a few weeks after she's started training Nyreen that those small, but telling, differences begin to crop up.

Like that she's quiet. Reserved. Some would even say shy. A personality like that is almost certain to perish under Omega's oppressive thrall, but she hasn't. Instead of becoming another two-bit junkie wandering the slums or a low-tiered merc who's desperate for work, Nyreen is under her direct tutelage, learning how to develop the gifts that her kind have never fully understood. That cool composure breaks then, as Aria pushes Nyreen to her limits, watching the muscles under those plates flex to keep up and her mandibles regularly contract between each hard-won breath—or the dual-toned jump in her voice when Aria occasionally steps into her personal space just to see her squirm some more.

Eventually, subconsciously or not, she begins to compare other turian women to the one she has. Their faceplates aren't as white as Nyreen's, their necks not as long or slim, their voices not as sweet or earnest. They don't stand the way she does beside Aria, head slightly bowed, hands crossed behind her back, a watchful gaze on anyone who comes near. Fewer have brilliant green eyes like hers. Maybe one or two possess that same moral center that's so rare on this hunk of rock.

And absolutely none of them are Nyreen.


	9. queens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scene: Pre-2183, Omega. Nyreen meditates on her position.

People stop for her, Nyreen realizes. When she walks down the corridor to Afterlife, the bouncer steps to the side. When she makes her way around the bar for the staircase on the opposite end of the club, the patrons clear a path for her. When she reaches the top of that alcove to the couch where Aria reclines, regal and aloof, her men don't perform the body scan. They used to, she notes, sitting down a few spaces from the pirate queen. But not anymore. Later, Nyreen brings up this recent trend, only to have Aria chuckle and idly wipe something from her mandible.

"Get used to it," she says.

It's a little dizzying, if Nyreen comes right out and admits it. She never expected to rise so fast, so quickly, through the ranks of Aria's organization. In fact, she didn't expect to get that far ahead at all. And for what? Pointing her gun at the right time at the right place at the right body? By right, she means "what Aria deems 'right,'" of course. At the very least, she isn't getting promoted by sleeping to the top; her improved biotics and Aria's nods of satisfaction at her progress is proof of that, however tenuous.

"What if I don't?" Nyreen asks.

Aria scoffs softly then, rolling her eyes for good measure. "You will. They all do eventually."

Power corrupts, she doesn't say out loud. Doesn't ask who "they" are either. Even later, when she's back at her dingy little apartment deep in Gozu District, Nyreen splashes water on her face and looks at herself in the mirror. The glass is cracked and cloudy, distorting her reflection. Shaking her head, she leaves the bathroom. If that isn't a perfect metaphor for her life, she doesn't know what is.


	10. after her own image

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scene: 2183. Aria muses on Nyreen's recent departure from Omega.

Nyreen wanted to be like Aria. That much had been obvious. But she couldn't. The turian didn't have it in her, whatever "it" was—she did have a strong moral center, and that was enough for Omega to reject her, in time. The young little thing had brought (and relentlessly kept) that obnoxious sense of right and wrong with her from those wasted years in the military—and if Aria had to guess, from her childhood as well. She'd always been such an insufferable, bleeding heart for the downtrodden and disenfranchised. Still is, wherever she's disappeared to now.

Goddess knows how Nyreen tried though, to walk like Aria, to talk like Aria, to think like Aria. It was a role she'd have been ill-suited for in spite of the personal training (and grooming) she had received from the queen herself. The persona Aria would see her sometimes adopt in front of an audience—head cocked back, eyes haughty, those talons curling and uncurling in mock-perpetual threat—was attractive (imitation's the sincerest form of flattery, after all), but fit her like a misshapen coat: like trying on asari clothing on a turian form. Which had been exactly what she was doing. The attempts were endearing, but laughable.

"What do you see in me?" Nyreen had once asked.

They were having a rare, quiet night in, and she wasn't in the mood for heavy conversation so in response, Aria had pushed her against the kitchen counter, flipping Nyreen's tunic over to slide her hands up those thighs she liked so much. "My fingers," Aria had said matter-of-factly, and that shut the other woman up for a while. Perhaps her question had contained another meaning she didn't bother parsing or addressing.

"Just you, Nyreen," Aria would answer now, "That's all I've ever seen."


	11. bodies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scene: 2183, Omega. Aria's orders, Nyreen's executions, their decline.

Yesterday, Nyreen personally took care of another Shadow Broker agent under Aria's employment: Afterlife dancer. Asari. Pretty little thing, at the peak of her maiden years if the dyed scalp and crest accessories were anything to go by. She had managed to get a scream in edgewise before Nyreen shot her point-blank in the chest. She shook her head at the blood pooling underneath the floor afterwards—the girl had been here barely a week. Immediately, the body was bagged and moved by someone else while she put away her pistol and returned upstairs to the couch where its de facto ruler had more orders to dispense.

Today, Nyreen's killed an Eclipse lieutenant who had snuck into one of Afterlife's weekly concerts as a band singer. Aria had noticed instantly after reading the itinerary earlier in the afternoon and promptly sent the message. Nyreen merely carried out its contents. Once again, the sprawl of cell-like rooms under Afterlife's main floor prove fairly useful as she leaves another body in one of them, wiping stray blood from her tunic. Salarian this time, a veteran from the looks of his armor and scar-nicked horns. A ping from her omni-tool lets her know that she's wanted on the main level again.

Tomorrow, Nyreen will receive an assignment. It will be typed in Aria's blunt, quick prose with a name, a location, and the usual follow-up. Like the dancer and the merc, she won't know their motives for crossing Omega's ruler unless she's foolish enough to ask. If she did, they'd give her the inevitable sob stories or careless bargains that would only take up space in her mind that's already filled with pathetic pleas and deals made to herself for continuing to do what she does for a woman she's learning to leave.


	12. habits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scene: 2186, Omega. Aria tries to keep it impersonal.

Nyreen isn't the turian who left her three years ago, that's for certain. With a new set of markings and armor, she runs an entire mercenary group (no matter how ragtag they look) against the human terrorist organization threatening to dismantle Omega's very foundation and way of life. Startled, Aria watches Nyreen direct these operations with courage and efficiency, and quickly catches on. There's passion behind those eyes and fire in that voice now. A quad or two as well, if the snarky asides and bold-faced confrontations in her bunker are anything to go by. She wouldn't have dared then, but things are different. They're different.

The change in circumstances thus necessitates a shift within the parameters of their temporary alliance. Dialogues are to be kept strictly business. Professional. And as with any set of solid guidelines, they get undermined by the number of times—more often than not—that they fall back on old patterns anyway. A throwaway line here, a coy allusion there—murmured references to memories both good and bad that do nothing to help Aria focus on the situation at hand. Thing is, it's almost too easy, slipping into their once-familiar roles like a dearly loved pair of pants, the fabric thinned and fraying from over-wear, but so soft to touch. Or maybe, if Aria's honest with herself, it's more of a bad habit (one of many) that she can't shake. She'd ask Nyreen which simile she'd choose, but that would be breaking the unspoken rules of their engagement. Again.

Nyreen tries hard to draw the line between then and now though, which tempts Aria even more to smudge it while the turian's back is turned. Her reaction afterwards—that dry flick of her mandible as she draws another boundary to be crossed—is telling enough.


	13. Potential

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scene: 2171 - 2183. The trajectory of Nyreen's biotics.

Nyreen had to take her meals alone. She wasn't allowed to contact her family more than once a week. The assignments she received-what little there were-took her far out into remote Hierarchy Space, where she and the rest of her cabal unit fumbled orders under a kabalim whose underwhelming abilities barely surpassed their own. In this manner, she languished in the turian military for three years, feeling her biotics fade and flux with irregularity before turning in her resignation, disgusted by the lack of pride she no longer held for her people or the weak mass effect fields she could generate.

Her freelancing years passed in much the same way. When not on some minor job that only just managed to put food on the table, Nyreen struggled to develop her half-baked skills by herself, often to unsatisfactory results. The occasional run-in with an asari merc led to free, impromptu lessons, but those usually required a base level proficiency she had the misfortune of never acquiring. Her biotics continued to stagnate until she stopped advertising them altogether, preferring to rely on the tangible strength of her body instead of this useless energy-sap that only served to wreak havoc with her sense of self.

Nyreen didn't understand the value of her abilities until she arrived on Omega. She failed to comprehend the magnitude of her potential until Omega's ruler sat up and took notice. In time, the full scope of her powers became known to her, but more than that, she stopped regarding her biotics as a mistake after Aria sat her down one day and called them "gifts." It was then that she learned to appreciate that which neither her kind nor her family ever did. How fitting that the words originated from another who didn't quite belong.


	14. Rage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scene: Omega, 2186. In the words of a batarian preacher, "The end is nigh."

Aria welcomes the abrupt switch into overdrive as her body surges forward on adrenaline that's been doubled—tripled. Only yards between her and the entrance to Afterlife, and her feet literally fly over the ground and towards a group of Cerberus troops that she flings against the wall without a backward glance. Her biotics, fully unleashed, set off a hum beneath her skin that visibly distorts the air around her. Had any civilians still been standing in her line of fire, their deaths would have occurred quickly and painlessly. Shepard (whose presence she dimly remembers) can catch up or be left behind. There is nothing, no one, to stop her now.

The stairs are a hindrance, the additional soldiers mere rag dolls to be thrown back. Her peripheral vision blurs the faster Aria runs until the only point of focus is the door at the end of the hallway, waiting, begging, to slide open. She can't concentrate on anything else, can't afford to think of anything else, not when victory (revenge) is this close, but no matter how far her anger drives her, Aria can't seem to put enough distance between her and the scorched patch on the floor where Nyreen was standing like the sentimental, foolhardy hero she insisted on becoming because apparently, having a bleeding heart wasn't enough—she had to bleed everywhere else too.

How unwittingly stupid, Aria thinks, each word punctuating the miasma of rage in her head, and careless and unnecessary and so damn predictable—but then the fury pushes down the rest of her errant thoughts so she can rip apart the door to reclaim Omega along with the sense of control that'd been ripped from under her boots, without the added distraction of having one more thing she's lost.

Anger helps her focus.


	15. a cruel mistress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scene: Omega, pre-2183. Nyreen finds that she has a cruel, but kind mistress.

Aria isn’t one for kindness. Centuries of hard living and experience have wiped out whatever traces of that were left by the time she and Nyreen finally met. She doesn’t do niceties either. As sovereign over the heart of the Terminus Systems, there’s no room for mercy in a ruler’s manner towards her subjects. What place would a soft-heart have in a land of those who have none? She controls entire networks from her couch with an iron fist, preferring to smirk rather than smile, to slap rather than caress—Nyreen winces as another unsuspecting fool is brought to their feet in cuffs for daring to break Omega’s single rule. To punish rather than reward. 

Nyreen has known all of this from the start and chose to enter this world she had stumbled onto anyway. Every step taken has been an effort made to get closer to her because cruelty is no less compelling than compassion, brutality no less seductive than gentleness. What argument could be formed against Aria’s harsh ways, when they have inspired legions of admirers and followers, sworn to uphold and swoon over their queen while they grovel in the streets as the decades trudge by? Suffice it to say, Nyreen is but one of them.

On days when the power goes out in her district, and she’s forced to stand in her apartment in complete darkness, Nyreen wonders what her life has become to be so enthralled by someone who would sooner kill her than kiss her. But then, but then she remembers the night before, when Aria had slid a hand around her waist, slow and sweet, while they passed another evening in Afterlife, in full view of everyone who cared to look. Those brief moments of tenderness in between are reason enough to stay.


	16. a portrait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scene: Omega, 2186. Aria compares the Nyreen in her memory to the Nyreen in her present.

There are stray splashes of red right above Nyreen’s brightly painted brow ridges. She normally isn’t this sloppy. The facepaint (more tattoo than paint, but the application doesn’t quite translate onto turian skin) had surely been applied in haste then, days after Cerberus’ takeover of Omega—perhaps earlier, even. After all, Aria can’t account for the time her former lieutenant had spent right under her nose on the station, going underground for goddess-knows what reasons. In any case, she doesn’t ask for an explanation. The way Nyreen wears them now suggests conviction overcoming any initial reservations she may have had.

They’re simply one more eye-catching detail on a striking face—like her curved mandibles, etched with new marks Aria hadn’t been present to witness. How worn and rounded the bottom tips have become. She remembers them as finely edged surfaces, testaments to Nyreen’s underused abilities in battle. Now she can see the underlying structure, white bone tracing off-white plates, like the network of veins on human wrists: an aesthetic framework of age and experience. Omega’s flickering lights play off nicely on the turian’s face, cloaking or emphasizing what’s changed (or hasn’t) on a pair of mandibles Aria used to touch. 

This is all to say that Nyreen looks as real as Aria remembers her and then some: the red paint just faded yet saturated enough, the mandibles lined with suitable wear and tear—her faceplates cracking in a peppered web or an evenly rendered pattern, a face like artwork her fingers itch to reach out and inspect to check if the ravages of time (or something else) have done their damage. Is her skin still smoothly textured? Mandibles still sturdy? 

Blinking once, Aria turns from the scorched dent on the floor, left with questions only her vivid memory can answer.


	17. integrity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scene: Omega, pre-2183. The definition(s) of integrity.

1\. firm adherence to a code of moral value

“What am I killing these people for? What did they do? You tell me it’s to maintain the law of the land, but the absence of law isn’t a law in and of itself. You tell me it’s for gain, but at what cost and whose gain—yours or mine? Or is there not a difference between the two because you still think that we share the same views? You tell me it’s my job, but what if I change my mind? What if this isn’t the life I want anymore?”

2\. an unimpaired condition

Nyreen would sidestep various puddles of questionable contents that dotted the narrow streets leading to her apartment in Gozu District. Scarf a hasty meal bought from the food cart right outside her door before crashing for a few hours on a threadbare couch. Wake up to the sound of an omni-tool message detailing her next assignment that would begin with gunfire and end in her employer’s bed. The same routine, day in and day out until years have passed, but she can’t remember the exact moment that it stopped filling the void from her previous life.

3\. the quality or state of being complete or undivided

Aria grinds down the rest of her cigarette. “Don’t play obtuse, Nyreen. No one’s forcing you to stay.” 

Smoke slowly trails from the ashtray on the coffee table. With nothing else to add, she pointedly doesn’t look at her, and another window presents itself again. A clear path to the door. The lack of possessions to pack. Enough credits to book a flight out of Omega. All that remains is her first step forward. Aria’s right. What’s keeping her here? 

“I want a reason to,” Nyreen says, not quite pleading.


	18. grief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scene: Omega, 2186. Queens like Aria don't grieve like the rest.

What does grief look like on someone who’s had a thousand years to acquaint herself with death as both a concept and a hard fact of life? The cooling body on the ground in front of her execution squad. A weeks-old corpse crumpled in the corner of the slums. A pretender styling themselves as a rival for her title. Some colleague she could have called friend in another reality. Despite the varied circumstances and ensuing ceremonies and banal sentimentalities, all meet the same end. Decompose the same way. Grief, then, must look on Aria as an aging matriarch does with a brightly dyed scalp: an ostentation best left to those younger than they. 

Besides, the people on her station grieve enough to compensate for her own lack of reaction. Many resort to violence, shedding sorrow along with their blood while others wail and keen, weaving their mourning song with the staccato gunshots in Omega’s smog-choked air. There’s certainly a variety to witness in the days (hours, minutes, right down to the seconds) following the reclamation of her throne. For weeks, the bodies burn in piles higher than what’s normal, and every face wears lines that remind Aria of hers. 

So what does it look like? Perhaps grief on Aria doesn’t manifest as a moment or physical expression, but as an entire stretch of time, a life too long and too lived to truly register these sudden, permanent departures for what they are: loss. This means that there’s nothing left to acknowledge—to cope with—when she revisits (again and again) the scorched mark on the floor in front of Afterlife. Nothing to show, nothing to hide, unless an idle passerby considers the uneven slope of her shoulders as something close to pain. Or simply exhaustion. It is difficult to say.


	19. gone missing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scene: 2183, Omega. Once the high of it passes.

During that first month, Nyreen focuses on lying low. Disguising herself, forging new IDs, avoiding all but the most desolate of neighborhoods—the fallout from Omega’s de facto boss strands her with scarce resources and zero immediate contacts. There is no longterm plan for where she intends to go or what she needs to do. Her survival is lived day-to-day, sometimes hour-to-hour when close brushes with Aria’s lieutenants (literally) force her back against the wall, poised for the sound of fading footsteps. Fortunately, the chaotic sprawl of the station produces abandoned buildings where she spends her evenings erasing the past.

After weeks on the run, Nyreen shakes off the fugitive’s fear and arrives at the conclusion that her former employer has failed to find her. Perhaps the false entry of her name on a ship manifest a while ago successfully threw off the scent. Perhaps Aria no longer cares where one biotic turian could have vanished. The morning she does not wake with a raised prickle on the back of her neck, her chest floats with relief, her breath comes easily. For a single, concentrated moment, she is free. She lets herself feel happy. 

What Nyreen fails to realize or could never predict is once the initial euphoria passes, her talons will idly trace—again and again—the places on herself where the skin had been marked by more wickedly dexterous fingers; she will discover music on her omni-tool that she did not download but forgot to remove; and in the night, her body will toss and turn, eventually curling toward the vacant side of her pallet where a warm body used to be or ought to be. She knew leaving would be the hardest thing she would ever do, but the crushing weight of Aria’s absence surprises her nonetheless.


	20. Only one way to go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scene: Omega, 2186. A thousand ways to die, but she chooses this one.

Aria pictures Nyreen in her old uniform with that ratted, black hood thrown over her head, the only feature of her lieutenant still untouched and identifiable before the eyes glance down to survey the body, studded with wounds that have long ago bled out into a thick, blue puddle on the floor. It’d been a simple assignment: oversee the deal at this warehouse in this particular district, watch for (and effectively handle) any possible foul play. Success had been the expected outcome, but they both know (or rather, only one of them does now) that their line of work offers no guarantees. Unfortunate, but unsurprising.

Aria pictures Nyreen in her old uniform with that ratted, black hood thrown over her head—and a bullet-shaped hole between her bright, blank eyes. The occasional argument, quietly and tensely held in the privacy of her apartment, is one thing, but open insubordination? The threat of rebellion? It wouldn’t do. Omega’s (un)titled ruler has never been known for her leniency, and that wouldn’t start now. The lieutenant had stared right back at her executioner, silent until the very last breath, and then Aria pulled the trigger, and their arrangement (regrettably) came to its inevitable end. 

There are other scenarios just as plausible, just as probable, and just as bleak for how the turian could die. A mugging. A random shootout. An intimate fight that escalated too quickly. Aria wouldn’t have told Nyreen (unless asked directly), but this isn’t how she envisions her ex-lover’s departure: her feet running fast but not fast enough, her mouth open but no words spilling out, a flurry of thoughts crossing her mind but no way to express a single one. Their eyes meeting for a second, and then nothing. She never imagined having a death without closure. Without goodbye.


	21. Waking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scene: Pre-2183, Omega. The many faces of Aria.

Aria’s lips are usually pursed with frown lines subtly marking the sides of her mouth like bookends. The double loop of her facial tattoo gains an extra dimension when she scrunches her forehead, whether from stress, irritation, consternation, or all three. And her jaw, always tensed, always a small muscle imperceptibly twitching on one cheek. The face of Omega’s queen, hard-lined and perpetually ready to face the galaxy. The face of a woman who never stops thinking about her next thirty moves. A face Nyreen sees when she closes her eyes, behind the eyelids, with skin like a cool-toned nebula and the temperament to match. 

And it would be worlds easier, wouldn’t it, to forget a face like that if that had been all she saw during her time on the station, but her memory proves cruelly accurate, and another more traitorous image occasionally surfaces as a reminder of what she’s walked away from. 

Moments like when she catches Aria in a rare facial limbo, her brow line smooth and her jaw relaxed, rendering her temporarily unrecognizable, but more importantly (most importantly), the effect it has on her, the look she wears when no one’s around, when the lights are dimmed, when the clothes are off, when the older woman sits up in bed to touch Nyreen awake—“it’s almost morning,” she says in a voice that matches the way those hands rub circles around her waist—and Nyreen shifts to allow better access, half-asleep murmurs bubbling from deep in her chest.

“I better go then,” she sighs.

A set of violet fingers curves tightly over her angular hip. “There’s no rush.”

Nyreen smiles to herself—“No?”—and turns to face Aria who’s mirroring her expression. She swears she’s still dreaming.

“Come closer,” Aria says simply, and Nyreen does, always.


End file.
